


The Devil You Know

by helwolves



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Blacks don't get happy endings, Dark, M/M, Post-Hogwarts Marauders Era, Remus is a bit off at this point in time and this time of the month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-02-04
Updated: 2005-02-04
Packaged: 2018-01-04 17:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1083684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helwolves/pseuds/helwolves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Only one man knows what really became of Regulus Black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devil You Know

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted February 4, 2005 (between OotP and HBP). Hat tip to David Thewlis's amazing performance in _Naked_ for crazy-Remus inspiration.

“Lupin.”

“ _Black._ ” 

The younger man shifts uncomfortably beneath Remus’s steady gaze, which crawls from Regulus’s face straight down to his mud-caked boots.

“He’s not here.” 

Remus’s eyes flicker from right to left, now staring past Regulus as if suspecting someone else to come strolling up the empty street. No one will. It’s late, and dark, and the flat is quite out-of-the-way, just like Remus prefers. He wrings his hands then shoves them in the pockets of his loose trousers, looking back at Regulus suddenly, as though he’d forgotten he was still there.

“Look, I need to—”

“Your brother. Isn’t. Here,” Remus spits. “Not anymore. No Sirius, not here, not anymore.” 

Regulus sighs, scowling with the frustration of Remus already having derailed his rehearsed words, his features sharp with deep shadows cast by the gibbous moon. Rain spatters against his leather jacket, and his dark hair hangs in wet spikes over his eyes.

“Will that be all, then?” Remus drawls, leaning against the door jamb.

“Look, this is important,” snarls Regulus. “Just fucking let me in.”

Remus smiles, wide enough that Regulus can see his tongue touching the tip of one sharp, white canine. “By all means.”

*

“ _The weeping child could not be heard, the weeping parents wept in vain_ —I’ve got half a flask of Ogden’s, is that—wait, there’s Guinness, too—or will that not mix properly with your pure blood? Hmm. _They strip’d him to his little shirt, and bound him in an iron chain_ —Regulus? Did you—”

“I heard you,” says Regulus, closing the bathroom door behind himself. He rubs his hair with a thin towel, staring as Remus rummages through a cabinet, muttering under his breath all the while. “So no one told me you’d gone mad.”

“ _And burn’d him in a holy place, where many had been burn’d before_...” Remus stands up abruptly, two dark brown bottles in his hands. “One could say the same of you.”

“You’re the one singing,” says Regulus, snatching a tossed bottle out of the air.

“Am I?” says Remus dully. “ _The weeping parents wept in vain_.” He grins again—a thin, half grin—before adding in barely a whisper, “ _Are such things done on Albion’s shore?_ ”

Regulus shivers.

*

Remus hasn’t laid eyes upon Regulus Black since leaving Hogwarts. Few have, according to certain reports from members of the Order. 

“Here,” says Remus, dropping a somewhat threadbare jumper onto the couch before settling himself into the armchair. “Bloody frigid tonight.”

Pursing his lips, Regulus picks at a wad of dog hair on the jumper before tugging it on. He crosses his arms over his chest, fingers tapping at his sides.

“Right.” Remus takes a long pull from his bottle, then licks the bitter taste from his lips. “What are you doing here, Regulus?” he asks softly, rubbing his scruffy chin.

“Saying goodbye.”

“Come to kill me, have you? Or Sirius, perhaps?”

Regulus just stares back for a moment, the blue of his eyes disturbingly pale. 

His coloring had always seemed a bit off, compared to his brother—eyes too icy, fading away against black, black hair and ashen skin that only looked truly alive were the boy sat next to a fire. Like a little ghost, Remus used to think. The little ghost of Sirius Black.

“No. It’s over,” says Regulus. “I’m out.”

There is no place for fire here in their London flat. Suddenly and intensely, Remus remembers the warm, spicy glow of the Gryffindor common room, and the rare glimpses he’d had of wavering green reflections in the dank pit beneath the lake. That must have fit Regulus perfectly. But now Remus thinks only of fire and how that would be better yet.

“You’re...out.”

“I’m out.”

Remus considers this for a few silent moments before unfolding himself from the armchair. “I wasn’t aware that the Dark Lord accepted resignations,” he says, kicking a wooden box cum coffee table out of the path of his pacing.

“That’s why this is _goodbye_ , isn’t it?” spits Regulus, a silvery edge creeping into his voice that reminds Remus all too well of the many dark things that blood can carry.

“And why should I believe you?”

“Why not?”

“ _Why not?_ ” Remus’s lip curls as he halts in front of Regulus, a step away but still close enough to sense the damp heat of the boy’s skin, the nervous fluttering in his veins. Remus holds out his hand. “Let me see your arm.”

Regulus recoils, his eyes flashing.

With one hand hovering over his own hip, where the jut of a wand distorts the seam of his shirt, Remus growls under his breath. “You don’t want to make me ask again.”

Regulus is fast but Remus is faster.

*

“I know you didn’t come here to hurt me.”

Remus is pacing once more, only this time Regulus is sitting in one of the rickety kitchen chairs, his arms and legs bound in thin, shimmering cords that make his skin prickle where they touch, a familiar sensation that—ridiculously—makes his cock throb with echoes of desire.

“Oh, how’s that?” Regulus asks, his voice shaking more than he’s comfortable with.

“There are wards all over this flat, love. If you lot think members of the Order are that fucking _stupid_ , no wonder you—”

“Still found you, though, didn’t I?”

“Don’t see any reason to hide. No one looking for _me_.” 

Remus crouches down beside the chair, balancing with one hand on Regulus’s knee. He looks up at the younger man and Regulus stares down, feeling a momentary sensation of falling into wild nothingness, wondering if Remus’s eyes were that dark and wide at school or if he’d just never looked close enough....

Remus leans closer, the roughness of his few-days-old beard scratching against Regulus’s neck and jaw. He breathes deeply and then exhales, and all the tiny hairs on Regulus’s skin stand on end. Regulus struggles to keep his head from lolling at the feel of that hot, damp breath against his neck, burning through the frosty air.

“You’re not afraid of me,” Remus whispers. 

It is not a question. Regulus needs no words to answer.

*

When Regulus wakes, he forgets for a time.

His body aches in an exquisite way he hasn’t felt since the first time Lucius Malfoy took him, shivering and writhing, pleas echoing around a cavern of cold stone. His muscles thrum gently. There are spell-burns on his wrists and the half-moon marks of Remus’s teeth on his chest, and on his thighs, and on his cock.

For the second time in as many days, Regulus is overwhelmed by an icy flood of regret.

He cannot stay. This he knows.

Across the room—not far, really, their flat is smallish—Remus sits on the low, wide windowsill, drenched in silver light, alternately blowing smoke rings and staring at the glowing red tip of a hand-rolled cigarette. Outside a cat shrieks, Muggle train cars shake an above-ground rail like a passing earthquake. Regulus shifts, about to stand—

“Stay there.”

Regulus starts, hard, when Remus breaks the relative silence. 

“You knew he wouldn’t be here.”

This isn’t a question either.

“I never told you he was in Paris. You said that,” Remus continues, in that same deadened tone. “You knew.”

“Yes.” Regulus worries his lower lip. His own voice sounds foreign and distant, his breath crystallizing in the air.

“So you came here. For me. Now.”

Regulus nods in the darkness, not for a moment believing that Remus can’t sense his every movement. He stands.

Remus is beside him in seconds. Regulus can feel his lip split and the ash sparks flare on his cheek even before the impact of Remus’s backhand sends him sprawling onto the bed. His tongue lashes out and tastes the warmth that beings dripping into his mouth, tangles with Remus’s tongue even as he is pinned to the mattress by Remus’s weight, arms held above his head, the cold, sharp point of Remus’s wand trailing up his chest to dig into the soft flesh under his chin.

“You came for me.”

“Y-Yes.”

“You came for _this_.”

“ _Yes._ ”

Remus smiles, teeth flashing silver and sharp in the moonlight. “Good timing.”

The flare of green light reminds Regulus of a glowing window beneath a lake, and of escape, and of home.

**Author's Note:**

> The poetry Remus babbles is from “Little Boy Lost” by William Blake.


End file.
